more dislike and suspicion.  Ah! my friend, when I see a young girl about to be married, my heart is full of anxieties for her—­I know the risk she runs.  But I did not feel them much for myself.  I grew into the knowledge of my unhappiness as I grew in knowledge of what might have been; but the recluse life of a French girl prevents her from expecting much from marriage but an increase of consequence.  With us it is a step from tutelage to liberty—­from nonentity to importance.  It cannot be quite so much so in England; but, from the greater prevalence of celibacy, it has even more eclat and prestige than here, where marriage is the rule.  The trousseau, the presents, the congratulations, the going into society under the interesting circumstances of an engagement, must divert a girl’s attention from the really serious nature of the connection she is forming.

“You will have pleasure in educating your little girls.  Make them strong in body and independent in mind if you can.  They are likely to be handsome, intelligent, and, if you continue to be prejudiced against poor Francis, rich.  Give them more knowledge and more firmness than their poor mother had.  I have no doubt that they will grow up good, for you will be kind to them.  Girls all turn out well if you give them good training in a happy home; but as for happiness, that depends so much on their choice in marriage, that all you have done for them may be thrown away, if you do not educate them to be something more than amiable and pleasing companions.  They must be trained to feel that they are responsible beings:  let their reading be as various, their education as comprehensive, as you would give to boys of their rank.  You know that ignorance is not innocence, and that some knowledge of the world is necessary to all of us if we are to pass safely through it.  I am glad to hear that Jane so much resembles you, and that Alice is so like her mother, and that you find their dispositions amiable and remarkably sincere.

“I have told you that I have difficulties with Clemence in the matter of truthfulness.  She cannot bear to say or to do what she fancies will be disagreeable or painful to any one.  She fears, if she does so, that she will not be loved; but I think I am succeeding in convincing her that we must learn to bear pain, and occasionally to inflict it.  When I stood over her last night with a cup of bitter medicine she drank it like an angel, and I said to her, ’My love, I taste this bitter taste with you, and would rather that I had not to give it to you; but if I, or any one whom you love, needs it, you must learn the courage to present it.’

“Arnauld disobeyed my orders one day last week, and played with his ball in the drawing-room, and broke a vase that I prized highly.  Clemence took the blame on herself, for she thought I should be less displeased with her than with her brother; but she was not sufficiently skilful to hide the truth.  Her Bonne was enraptured with her generosity, and embraced her with the empressement which is so ridiculous to your insular ideas; but Clemence saw that I was not pleased.